


F.A. 449 [Years of the Sun]

by MeetMeInThePit (Gil_Galads)



Series: Happy People [2]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Cousin Incest, Discussion of Abortion, Gen, Gil-Galad is here in spirit, M/M, Or more accurately he's here in utero, POV Outsider, Trans Male Character, Unplanned Pregnancy, lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 16:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6526894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gil_Galads/pseuds/MeetMeInThePit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maitimo has nowhere else to turn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	F.A. 449 [Years of the Sun]

**Author's Note:**

> So this is not immediately after the previous fic in this series, and there will eventually be another fic in between. But this one came to me first, so. Yeah. 
> 
> see the notes at the end for basic TW

Guard Captain Lendanis Veryandil was rather concerned when the Lord Maitimo approached her and furtively asked to speak to her in private later that night. He had a particular look in his eyes, much like her own children used to wear when they had made some grave mistake and came before her afraid and shame-faced. She had no inkling of what he may have done, but as both a loyal guard of her lord and a mother of three children (two, two now; for her sweet Lendanion had died at Alqualondë), she went to his rooms prepared for just about anything, from an impending orc attack to an accidental marriage during casual sex. And so, after her evening shift on the walls had finished, Lendanis knocked on the door to Lord Maitimo’s chambers.  
  
“Come in!”  
  
Lendanis opened the door. The Lord Maitimo was standing by the small window; at first glance as composed as ever. But at a second glance, Lendanis could see that her lord was tense and shaking slightly, and he gripped the sill tight with his hand. ‘Oh dear,’ she thought to herself. ‘He really must have stepped in it this time, to be so frightened.’  
  
“You wished to speak with me, my lord?”  
  
He turned, and it was only through her composure as a guard that she did not gasp and rush to cradle him in her arms – for his face was pale and drawn, and fear was writ clear in his eyes as she had never seen before. Before his imprisonment the Lord Maitimo had always kept a calm and composed manner no matter the challenge ahead; and afterwards he seemed to fear naught, even as the strongest soldiers quailed. Her lord was as an unshakable mountain, and yet he stood before her now as a scared child, looking so much like her poor Lendanion had, when she cradled him in her arms as he breathed his last.  
  
Maitimo looked down. “Thank you for coming.” Even through his rasping, ruined voice it was a whisper, and Lendanis wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around him and pull his head down onto her shoulder. And yet she restrained herself- if her lord needed comforting, he would be comforted, but now was not yet the time.  
  
“I… I have… acquired a problem of a… personal nature and I am at a loss for what to do. You are the only one I know of who may be able to help me in this moment.”  
  
Well. There was no saying no to that plea, however carefully worded it may be. From his vague description, Lendanis had a feeling that her guess of accidental marriage may be closer to the truth than she had realized. Inclining her head, she replied: “As ever, my lord, I am here at your service.”  
  
Maitimo drew in a breath as if steeling himself, and looked her in the eye. “You may recall that the announcement at my birth was for that of a daughter, and that it was amended several years later, yes?”  
  
Of course she remembered. All of Valinor remembered. It had been the first time such an occurrence had been so publicized, not to mention acknowledged by their king. It was easily accepted that Fëanaro had had a son and not a daughter, especially as the child had not yet been seen in public at the time of the second announcement. In all honesty, it was a forgotten fact that the prince Maitimo had been thought a daughter at first; something only remembered when brought up. Like now. A certain suspicion arose in Lendanis’ mind.  
  
Several months before, the lord had ridden out to Mithrim with a contingent of soldiers; Lendanis included. They had stayed at the lake for about a week, whilst Maitimo reported the recent activity of orc packs to the King. As for her own personal belief of who the other involved party was- well, Lendanis _was_ a soldier. She knew the gossip that went through the ranks - which was why she had put a good deal of her quarterly pay into a betting pool on the matter. “Yes, I remember that.”  
  
Maitimo drew in another deep breath, ran his hand through his still-choppy hair, and pursed his lips before continuing. “I am with child. And I have no idea what to do.”  
  
He must have been surprised when Lendanis finally gave in, moving forward to place a hand on his arm and guiding him to sit on the low couch before the hearth; because his muscles tensed beneath her hand, and his ears twitched back for a second.  
  
“My lord, if I may, I suspected as much when you brought up the circumstances of your youth.” A soldier she may be, but Lendanis was a mother before all else, and respectful language or not she was going to mother the poor lord as much as he’d allow, and perhaps even beyond what he’d allow. His own mother, the Lady Nerdanel, was not around, but Lendanis thought to herself that the Lady would approve.  
  
“Did you?” Maitimo asked, looking very lost. A great big puppy he was, and Lendanis felt her heart simply break that such a young elf - for young he was - should have to bear such burdens as he. 

“I did, my lord,” She nodded, carefully daring to put her hand on his shoulder. “Also, I must ask; does the King know?”

Well, there it was! Valar save her if she was wrong, but she had to know. Not only for the sake of helping her lord to the best of her abilities, but for the sake of the betting pool!

“No, I only just found out myself, there’s been no time to send Findekáno a letter, nor to decide what to tell him-” There, he stopped. Blinked. Looked at her quizzically. “Wait, you know? How?”

With a feeling of quiet triumph, Lendanis mused to herself that she had just known there was _something_ between the two of them. Out loud, she said, rather dryly, “My lord, the two of you haven’t exactly been subtle. He moons over you at every opportunity, and you give him long, lingering glances. In addition, a friend of mine, though I had doubted him due to drunkenness, swears that he saw yourself and the King in an... _intimate embrace_ behind the royal stables at lake Mithrim.” The lord flushed beneath his scars and his freckles, eyes wide and embarrassed. 

“…I see.”

Lendanis shook herself. As nice as it was to discover she’d just won a not insignificant sum of coin, there was a very pressing matter at hand. “Yes. But do you wish to tell him, my lord?” 

Maitimo looked rather distraught at that, a burst of conflicted emotion crossing his face. “I…I do… but I know not if it is wise.”

“And why may it not be so?” A not-so-gentle prodding was what the lord had need of, to lead his mind to the decision his heart had already made.

“Because it is impossible for me to keep the child, and it would only hurt him to know of a child he could never see.” At this he smiled bitterly, pain obvious in his eyes. “And I do not wish to hurt him…”

With that last, near silent murmur, Lendanis’ heart broke neatly in two. ‘That’s it,’ she thought. ‘I’ve got another son now.’ 

“Do you mean to end the pregnancy, then?” Although it would be an impossible dream for Maitimo and the King to raise the child together, Lendanis could see in her lord’s eyes that he did not truly wish to end the pregnancy. It may have been a horrendous time to have a child - any child, not just the scandalous child of Fëanaro’s eldest son and the High King Findekáno, but the desire for this child was nevertheless plain in Maitimo’s voice, in his face, in his stance. He cradled his arm, the one that ended in a stump, to his stomach, and a wetness shone in his eyes. 

“I must.”

“And there is no other way?” 

“If there is one that you have seen and I have not, then please, enlighten me! For if it is as you say and nigh on the entire host of the Noldor knows of my illicit relationship with my king and cousin, then neither of us can claim the child as a fosterling.” Frustration was clear in the rasp of his voice, and Lendanis could feel him shaking beneath her hand. 

What a fine mess this was. 

“No one has said anything so far, why would they say anything then?”

He gave her a dirty look. She ignored it. He huffed out a frustrated sigh. “Because an illicit, incestuous relationship is one thing, but a child of that relationship?” Maitimo shook his head. Lendanis had of course known this, but she wanted for him to give it voice. She found it was often helpful to puzzle out the consequences of a course of action out loud, at least in her experience.

“True. But is it your wish to end the pregnancy?”

“…No. Is that so wrong of me? To wish to carry my cousin’s child, to wish to hold that child in my arms and raise it as my own, no matter what any might say?”

How conflicted he must be, to speak so much, and so quickly! The Lord Maitimo was usually one to refrain from speaking overmuch, to think through his words carefully before he spoke so as to keep what he did say short and to the point. Now, he spoke quickly, and said more than Lendanis had ever heard him say at once. It did not surprise her, though, for she too would be just as conflicted if she stood in his place. 

“You love him, then.” It was not a question, but a statement of fact. True, Lendanis wasn’t quite comfortable with the fact that they were cousins - but they were half cousins who had not been raised as such due to the feud between their fathers, which explained how they had come to develop such romantic sentiments in lieu of familial love for one another. And while there had been accounts of marriages between cousins at Cuivienen, none of those that Lendanis had heard tell of were between first cousins, even those without a shared grandmother, such as in the case of Maitimo and the High King. A child of such close relations was rather an uncomfortable thought. 

“I do.”

Lendanis sighed. “I do not think your desire to have a child with the one you love to be a wrong thing-“Here she paused, and smiled wryly. “-So long as it is not because he is your cousin that you wish to have a child.” Soldiers are always rather crude, and Lendanis, despite herself, was no different. 

Maitimo spluttered a bit, shocked. “Of course not! It is because he is my cousin that I am wary of my desire for a child!”

“Of course!” Lendanis laughed then, agreeing with her lord. “But is there no other way open to you at this time?”

“Well, I could birth the child in secret and give it up to a willing foster parent…” 

“…But?”

“…But…I am selfish as ever, and am loathe to carry a babe for so long, only to give up any chance of raising it myself.”

“I speak as a mother now, my lord - that desire is not selfish, though others may think so.” Maitimo had ceased shaking beneath her hands, and his visage was no longer so pale and drawn; though the pain and frustration and fear of the situation still shone in his every glance. “And while it is neither my place nor my decision, I would advise strongly against ending the pregnancy. It is clear to me that in your heart you dread such an action, and I fear that doing so will forever scar your fëa with the memory of what could have been.”

Maitimo bowed his head, and sighed. In the hearth, the fire cracked, flinging glowing sparks upward. It was many long minutes, perhaps nigh on an hour, before he spoke again, but for Lendanis, being an elf, the time passed did not bother her. At one point, the lord rose to throw another log onto the fire, and stood standing before it, looking into the flames, whilst Lendanis preoccupied herself with the playing of the fading light on the rough-hewn stone of the walls, and wondered vaguely who had designed the keep. 

“Thank you for speaking with me tonight, Lendanis.” When Maitimo finally spoke, he was very quiet, and much calmer than before. Lendanis stood, and bowed. 

“I am always glad to assist you, my lord.” She smiled warmly as she spoke, and perhaps the very corner of the lord’s mouth twitched upward. It was hard to tell, what with the ropey scarring that twisted his lips permanently into a strange grimace, but Lendanis thought it was a smile.

“I trust that this will not be getting around?”

“Of course not, sir.” And it didn’t. Lendanis took the secret to her grave, almost a century and a half later, at the bottom of the writhing sea that had once been Beleriand.

**Author's Note:**

> TW: Maedhros is a trans guy, Fingon got him pregnant, and there are serious discussions of both abortion and incest in this fic, though none of either actually occur in this particular installment. Nothing explicit, but it's there. 
> 
> Lendanis was a plot device but I really like her and I think I'm going to keep her for a few other fics. Also, fun fact; her name means Journey-Woman. Thought that was a cool thing.


End file.
